P&G Starts Online Subscription Service for Tide Pods

By Aarthi Rayapura • July 19, 2016

For decades Procter & Gamble Co. has relied on retailers, from local groceries to giants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., to sell its razors, shampoo and diapers. Now the consumer-products company is looking for ways to cut out the middleman.

Blindsided by the success of the upstart Dollar Shave Club, an online subscription service that chipped away at the dominance of Gillette razors, P&G executives say they are focusing not only on what consumers buy, but how they buy.

The results are experiments like one that P&G just launched in Atlanta called the Tide Wash Club, an online subscription service for the dissolvable Tide Pods capsules that are the company’s highest-priced laundry detergent. The company offers free shipping at regular intervals.

Another new offering: Tide Spin, an undertaking P&G is calling the “uberization of laundry,” in which customers in parts of Chicago can use a smartphone app to order laundry pickup and delivery from Tide-branded couriers.